A Tesla Roadster has set a new unofficial record for the longest distance travelled by a production e-car on a single charge.
Global_Green_Challenge_Tesla Hackett's Roadster was taking part in the annual Australian Global Green Challenge
Driven by owner Simon Hackett, the unmodified red 2008 Tesla Roadster managed to cover a …

Does this mean....

Well done!

Diatance is not important

Why is it that we are so hung up on distance for leccy cars, most of us dont do over 200 miles a day. ..............Oh................... wait, for years the governments planning policy has been to reduce the number of houses with garrges or "house side" parking in a failed effort to discourage car ownership. So now no one has space to plug in their leccy cars to charge them up! Still there is always that bus, to get stabbed on.

There is no title and never will be.

Lovely. Acceptable range from an electric car *that costs more than my house*. Can we go back to reading about GPS receivers and overpriced laptops? Those are at least in the realm of "maybe I'll get to own or at least touch something that cool"....

Being a pedant

It's not 'Southern Australia', tis South Australia. Yes I know we have "Western Australia" and the "Northern Territory" but the bit in the middle at the bottom is definitely just plain old South Australia.

Oh and in regard to the article I must agree with Stef4 - Let's have a real world test of these technologies - Major city, peak hour, foul weather etc etc ....

How fast?

Was he at or near the speed limit, or traveling a good deal slower? Makes a difference.

In other news, my Wife's aging Toyota Pickup[1] can go about 370 miles at ~70MPH on one 12 gallon tank[2] ... and "recharge" in the time it takes me to clean the bugs off the windows and headlights.

[1] 1993, standard cab, 2WD, 5speed, 22RE motor, 230,000 miles on the clock. All is stock, except I had to replace the head gasket. While I was in there I put a new timing chain and guides in it "just in case" ... and I replaced the water pump about 30K ago.

No mention of the support truck?

I notice you forgot to mention the suport truck with a diesal generator on the back that had to follow them the whole trip to recharge the car on the other sections of the race. All up the truck and generator probably used more fuel than *all* the competing cars combined.

Probably...

...Down hill, with a tail wind. Most likely on cruise control at a walking pace. Wind resistance goes up as the square of the speed.

The other alternative is that they stowed it in a truck (Lorrie) for the trip, and drove it for the last 5 miles.

Me? My nice SUV gets about 350+ miles on a tank of gas going over 70mph down I-5 in the central valley (of California), and it hauls a bunch of stuff while I'm doing it and the air conditioner is just fine thank you.

@Herby

My commuting car gets 500 Miles from a tank! (yes thats with AC too!) and if I drive at a modest 55mpg I can get 55mpg (thats an english/imperial g not a us one!) However thats not impressive enough for its own news article.. So I dont get why your telling me about your Chelsea tractor.... I dont care!

Oh and btw its 'Lorry' unless you meant Hugh, in which case its 'Laurie'.

@How about an inner-city-rush-hour-commute-challenge

Surely thats a daft idea?

You can't expect a car that uses no power when stationary, and recoverys energy when it brakes, (ie stopping in traffic) driving at negligable wind resistance, to do any worse than a straight run???!?!?!

@Jake

Re: Endurance?

"I suggest an electric Bathurst 1000."

Careful, I believe they still tar and feather for heretical ideas like that Down Under. AFAIR the Bathurst is one of the few remaining events where people are driven to question your sexuality if your engine is equipped with fewer than eight cylinders and returning overall MPGs in double figures definately falls foul of Rule One.

@ Michael 2 - Wrong

Average daily commute in the UK is approximately 17 miles and takes around 45 minutes each way by car.

17 * 5 = 85 miles

There is a possibility that average Joe might only have to charge their Tesla once every 3 weeks (255 miles).

Figures from 2000: "The average worker in the UK commutes 2,906 miles pa and travels 1,622 miles on business by car. Overall, commuting accounts for approximately 78.5 billion miles of car travel, with 44 billion miles driven while on business."

@Greg J Preece

That was the 4X4 variation. They are more heavily built, nearly indestructible in fact. This one is a 2WD, and somewhat lighter. I suspect the only reason we got such good mileage is because the dog's crate, the laptop cases & our luggage completely filled the front third of the truck's bed, changing the aerodynamics. We also had a tailwind both ways, which helps. The 4X4 models are the feed-truck of choice at barns everywhere ... even field hands can't kill 'em.

It's downhill.

For reference:

Alice Springs airport (YBAS) is at 546 metres altitude.

Coober Pedy airport (YCBP) is at 225 metres altitude.

And, in El-Reg fashion, I checked the results in http://blog.internode.on.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/tesla-roadster-ggc-2009-results.pdf only to find that the car didn't complete most stages within the allocated time. The "shiny stage" reported is, if memory serves, the steepest downhill one.

The altitude profile for the event is uphill until around Aileron Roadhouse in the Territory, to the North of Alice, at about 665 metres altitude. It's downhill from there to Adelaide.

I remember that the VW Lupo 3L in the 80 days around the world project used less than 2 litres/100km (over 140 mpg for those who can no longer buy gallons) when crossing the great flats of Australia. It finished on time and didn't take all night to re-fuel.